


Bloodsport

by OfEndlessWonder



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-23 10:23:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6113533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OfEndlessWonder/pseuds/OfEndlessWonder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four times Root gets herself shot (or four times Shaw is the one to patch her up).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bloodsport

The first time Shaw fishes a bullet out of Root’s body, it’s one she put there herself.

Root is defeated when she fails to find the Machine, determined to take out her pain and her rage on Harold, believing he’d tricked her, whirling on him with fury in her eyes and a trembling finger on the trigger of her gun.

And then a bullet rips into her shoulder and the gun clatters from her hand as she cries out in pain, the life draining out of her in a single breath as she drops to the floor, pressing a hand to her shoulder in an attempt to stem the blossom of blood that quickly starts to seep through her shirt.

“Don’t,” she hears Harold murmur to Shaw, who stands above her with a gun trained at her head, and Root knows that there’s a part of her that longs to pull the trigger. She knows that if Shaw truly wanted her dead, she would be already, the bullet would have embedded itself in her chest rather than her arm – she’d read her file, she knows her aim is impeccable and that she has no qualms about ending someone’s life.

She wonders, as she glances up at Shaw, the edges of her vision foggy with the pain that radiates from her arm, what she thinks when she looks at Root. She knows how pathetic she seems, cowed and broken, knows that all of them – Shaw and Reese and Harold – would probably feel a lot safer if Shaw’s next bullet lodges in her skull.

But no shot comes, as Shaw lowers her weapon in response to Harold’s plea, though she keeps her fingers wrapped tightly around it and Root knows that if she moves too suddenly Shaw won’t hesitate to use it.

She doesn’t want to, though. She knows it’d be useless to run, resigns herself to that fact that, at least for now, she’s at their mercy. She doesn’t protest as she’s hauled roughly to her feet and dragged away, only lets out a ragged gasp of pain as the movement jars her arm.

“Thought you enjoyed this sort of thing?” Shaw hisses as she makes Root walk in-front of her, twisting her un-injured arm behind her back so hard that Root knows there will be finger-shaped bruises marking her skin come morning.

She chooses not to answer, biting her tongue as she’s lead away from the building where she’d thought she’d find her purpose but instead had been left spiralling, not uttering a word of complaint as she’s shoved into a dark car and driven away.

Shaw sits with her in the backseat, gun still held lightly in one hand while Reese drives, Harold shooting her wary glances through the rearview mirror every few seconds, but Root ignores them all, staring out of the window and watching the city flash by.

She hears them discussing what to do with her but doesn’t care enough to listen; she almost expects them to change their minds, to pull the car over in a quieter part of town and put an end to her after all, but instead they pull up the curb outside a fancy-looking apartment building that Root stares up at curiously.

“You really think showing her one of your safehouses is a good idea, Finch?” Shaw asks, voice gruff – she hasn’t taken her eyes of Root for a single second, the heat of her gaze stinging at Root’s skin, and Root wonders what might happen if the two of them are left alone together, considering how things had gone down last time.

She’d tasered and almost tortured Shaw on their first meeting; Shaw had shot her on their second, and Root wonders what might happen if (when) there’s a third.

“I don’t think she’s much threat to any of us at the moment, Miss Shaw,” is Finch’s quiet reply, and Shaw scoffs as she shakes her head.

“Yeah, and what about in a couple of hours when she returns to her usual psycho self?”

“We’ll deal with that if it happens.” Root turns her head just in time to see Shaw’s jaw clench in anger, clearly disagreeing with everything Finch is saying, and Root knows that if not for him, she wouldn’t still be breathing. “But right now she needs medical attention. I believe you have some expertise in that area?”

“I do, but that doesn’t mean I’m willing to patch her up,” Shaw mutters as she shoulders open the door of the car – she reaches for Root and drags her along with her, and Root bites her lip to smother another cry of pain, her eyes watering as her arm is jostled, refusing to show any further weakness in-front of these people who want nothing more than to destroy her (though she knows they have their reasons, all of them, and good ones too).

Root is led up to the top floor of the building, into an elegantly but sparsely decorated apartment, where she is promptly zip-tied to a chair, Shaw yanking her arms roughly behind her back, hard enough to make her wince.

Her jacket is pushed over her shoulders before the sleeve of her shirt is cut away, and there’s a lewd remark on the edge of her tongue but when she sees the anger glittering in Shaw’s dark eyes she bites it back, because the woman is about to be digging around for a bullet and Root doesn’t really want to give her any more reason to make things as painful as possible than she already has.

Harold and his bodyguard speak in hushed tones off to one side, but Root barely spares them a glance as she watches Shaw closely. There’s a brusque air to the way she snaps on a pair of latex gloves before opening a first aid kit produced from somewhere in the apartment, unscrewing the lid of a tube on antiseptic and splashing some onto a cotton pad before leaning close to Root, swiping across the bullet wound with more force than Root thinks is strictly necessary.

It _stings_ , and Root sucks in a harsh breath, watching a smirk play around the edges of Shaw’s lips when she hears her. She wonders if this is adequate payback for Root tying to her chair and threatening her – she wonders if it had driven Shaw crazy, that someone in her line of work could be fooled and made so vulnerable, wonders if it had played on her mind in the weeks afterward.

She knew that Shaw had been attempting to dig into her past, to find and follow her. She thought it was kind of cute, that Shaw actually thought that there would be a single trace of her past life to exist outside of the stuffy town of Bishop, Texas; Root had deleted every trace of Samantha Groves aside from the memories in the heads of the people that remained on the day she had left town, and she’d never once looked back.

Shaw leans away from her in order to pick up some tweezers, and Root’s breath turns shallow as she watches her sterilise them, her body tensing as Shaw approaches, because she’s a hundred percent sure that this is going to hurt like hell.

She’s not adverse to a little pain (in some circumstances she even likes it – she hadn’t lied to Shaw about that), but God, nothing like this. Her shoulder explodes in agony, radiating throughout her entire body, and she frantically attempts to blink away the tears that spring into her ears as they form, refusing to let them fall.

Shaw isn’t gentle, but she doesn’t draw things out, either, retrieving the bullet quickly and relatively easily, removing the tweezers and letting the warped piece of metal clatter onto the table that sits beside them.

Root’s breathing is laboured, and she fights to return it to normal as Shaw prepares to stitch her up. She watches the other woman closely as she works, taking in the tiny frown of concentration between her eyebrows and the focused look in her eye as she passes the needle expertly through Root’s skin, cutting the thread at the end and leaning back with a tiny nod of satisfaction.

“Stop staring at me,” she says, then, the first words to come out of her mouth since they’d left the car, and Root blinks at her for a long few moments before a slow smile pulls at the edges of her lips.

“Well, you’re just so nice to look at…” She trails off, and knows she’ll regret the words when she watches Shaw’s eyes flash – she sees a hand approaching her shoulder and braces herself, but she’s still not prepared for the agony that floods her when Shaw’s thumb digs into the fresh wound, _hard_ , and she gasps.

“Miss Shaw!” Harold chastises, and at the sound of his voice Shaw releases her hold, muttering something under her breath as she grabs a piece of gauze and tapes it roughly over the bullet hole before stalking away.

Root watches her go, admiring the view. She hadn’t been lying, because Shaw was _hot_ – Root might have read her file (and she’d meant it when she said she was a big fan), and known what she looked like but she’d been wholly unprepared for the reality of it, and wonders if Shaw had seen her eyes widening when Shaw had shucked out of her coat on that fateful day, revealing the lithe body beneath.

Root supposes that, if the little band of misfits choose to keep her captive, at the very least she’ll get to spend a little more time with Shaw. And while her gruff demeanour and obvious dislike of Root might put others off, she isn’t fazed. She can already tell that her flirting is the perfect way to get under Shaw’s skin, and she can’t wait to try again – this could even be kind of fun, she muses, taking the opportunity to turn her head and take in the room around her.  

Shaw is with Finch and Reese near the kitchen, munching her way through a bag of chips (Root adds ‘food lover’ into the file she has on Shaw in her head), and when Shaw notices Root’s gaze on her she smiles a wicked little smile, and Root feels a flash on unease, suddenly sure that she’s not going to like what comes next.

There’s nothing she can do about it though. Her hands are firmly secured (which, you know, in certain situations she finds quite pleasurable (she thinks she especially would if it were Shaw doing the restraining), but this is not one of them), and even if she were somehow to wheedle her way out of them she knows that even with two fully functioning arms there’s no way she’s getting past both Shaw and Reese without a weapon.

She could probably use Harold as leverage, if she could get ahold of him, but ever since he arrived Reese has been careful to angle himself so that he’s always between her and Harold, and Root knows that she doesn’t stand a chance.

So she resigns herself to whatever’s coming with a small sigh, and thinks of the Machine, out there somewhere waiting for her, tells herself that she can endure it, can bide her time until she can escape and get to Her, and she watches warily as Shaw pads back over to her with a knife in her hands.

She moves behind Root to slice open the zipties, harsh enough for the blade to nick the skin of one of Root’s wrists, and she shudders slightly at the feeling, breathing out a low hiss (because _that_ is more the kind of pain that she’s into, and from the look Shaw shoots her when she appears at Root’s side, she knows _exactly_ what Root is thinking, and Root smirks predatorily as their eyes meet). Shaw yanks her arms in-front of her before Root can stretch them and alleviate some of the ache that comes from having them held awkwardly behind her for so long, and before she can even blink they’re zip-tied again, at her front this time.

“You could at least buy a girl dinner first,” she comments as Shaw urges her to stand, and she hears the other woman huff out a quiet sigh as she steers her towards the front door. “Where are we going?” She asks as she’s pushed over the threshold, not really expecting an answer, but Shaw surprises her, thinly-veiled glee in her voice as she replies.

“You’re going for an extended stay in the nuthouse. Congratulations.”

x-x-x

It’s months later before Shaw has to fish another bullet out of Root – from the same arm, just a little lower down, and it’s not Shaw’s bullet this time.

Control hadn’t deigned to patch her up beyond sticking a bandage over the wound to stop the bleeding, and Root had almost forgotten about the bullet lodged in there after the subsequent torture session and stapedectomy.

She barely manages to make it out of that warehouse, knows she never would have if not for Her, and when She texts an address to the phone in Root’s hand once she’s out in the cool night air, she follows the instructions without question.

Her skin is slick with sweat that cools quickly and leaves her shivering, and she barely has the energy to keep her feet moving. A slightly hysterical part of her mind whispers that maybe she should have injected herself with one final dose of amphetamine before leaving and she laughs quietly to herself as she walks, earning an alarmed look from the handful of people on the streets at this time of night, and she wonders what she must look like, stumbling like she’s drunk, barely able to keep herself upright.

She nearly collapses when she reaches the building she’s been directed to, has to pause and lean against a wall, her ear aching and her vision fuzzy, and her pulse is racing so quickly that for a moment she’s worried that it’s going to stop altogether.

She’s off-kilter, completely disorientated by the drugs and by the fact that there’s nothing but a wall of silence on her right side, and that terrifies her more than anything else that’s ever happened to her in her life.

It’s only then that she realises where she is – in-front of the same apartment building that she’d broken into not too long ago, tasering and drugging the occupant before dragging her away, and she wonders, idly, as she forces herself forward, into the building and towards the stairs within it, whether Shaw will be happy to see her this time.

She doubts it. After their first delightful mission together (Root will never forget that CIA safehouse – it hadn’t gone quite the way she’d wanted, because there had been a lot less (zero) sex than she would’ve wanted, but she’d got to stare at and annoy Shaw for ten whole uninterrupted hours and she likes to think that she’d grown on the other woman, just a little bit, that day), Shaw had promptly locked her away again. She supposes that Shaw is the reason Harold had finally let her out of that cage, though, so maybe they’ve made progress after all.

She doesn’t know how she manages to make it to Shaw’s front door, but she does, lifting her hand to knock weakly. There’s no answer the first time so she raises her fist again, and when the door is flung open suddenly she’s so surprised that she nearly falls, would have if not for Shaw reaching out to grab her.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Is the greeting she gets, and Root supposes that it’s not a bad one, considering the gun Shaw had been aiming in-front of her as she’d opened the door. She lets Shaw drag her inside, sagging against her, and Shaw breathes out a quiet curse as she slams the door behind Root and practically carries her over to her threadbare couch. “And what the hell _happened_?”

“I had a little chat with your former boss,” Root answers weakly, and when she lets her eyes fall shut Shaw shakes her, clicking her fingers in-front of Root’s face and she flinches when she opens them again, not realising she was so close. “It didn’t go so well.”

“What did she do to you?” Root shivers violently, the temperature of Shaw’s apartment not much better than that outside, and Shaw murmurs for her to stay where she is as she slips away. Root thinks that she says something else whilst she’s gone, but she can’t hear her, and she jumps when Shaw approaches her from her right side, and Shaw looks at her curiously. Root watches her mouth open but can’t hear the words, her pulse too loud in her good ear.

“You’re going to have to speak up,” she says quietly, staring at the wall in-front of her rather than at Shaw as she reaches to brush her fingers against the bandage behind her right ear. “I seem to have gone a little deaf.”

Shaw frowns and gently pulls away the bandage, sucking in a harsh breath when she sees the thin line beneath. “Shit, Root, I… I’m sorry.” Root barely hears her, though, the words lost behind another shudder, and she absently wonders if this is an after-effect of the drug cocktail because she swears her skin is on fire. “What else did she do to you?” Shaw asks gently, and Root is grateful when she moves over to her left side, kneeling beside her as she peels away her other bandage, examining the bullet wound beneath with a critical eye. She notices the needle marks on her arm, then, running a fingertip over the crease of Root’s elbow so lightly that she shivers.

“She gave me a delightful cocktail of barbiturates and amphetamines.”

“Jesus Christ.” Shaw’s fingers move to her wrist, then, pressing hard against her pulse point and for the first time since Root had met her, she sees worry lining Sameen Shaw’s face. “How much did she give you?”

“A lot.” Root feels nausea swirl through her as another shudder wracks through her body, and Shaw must recognise the look on her face because she’s quick to sling an arm around Root’s waist and help her to the bathroom, where she promptly throws up the contents of her stomach into the toilet with a grimace, bile burning at the back of her throat.

Shaw hands her a bottle of water that she sips at gratefully, before turning her so that her back’s against the wall, giving her access to her arm. She doesn’t say a word as she gently cleans the wound, and Root barely notices the pain of the bullet being removed from soft tissue over the throbbing in her skull.

Once she’s been stitched up Shaw shifts to Root’s other side, cleaning the wound behind her ear carefully, and even though it barely hurts in comparison of the earlier impromptu surgery, Root can’t help but let a handful of tears fall, a sob building in her chest as she wonders how she’s going to adapt to this.

“Hey.” Shaw’s hands, gentle on her cheek, surprise her, and she opens her eyes to see the other woman leaning close, concern glittering in her eyes. “You’re going to be okay.” She’d read in Shaw’s file that she’d been fired from medical school because of her lack of empathy towards her patients, but Root can’t see any trace of that in her eyes now, Shaw’s gaze surprisingly gentle. “Why didn’t your all-seeing other half get you out of there?”

“I couldn’t talk to her until it was too late.” She recalls the Machine’s apology, spelled out in Morse code from the phone that Control had been unable to hear, just seconds before a knife had been pressed to her skin.

She feels another roil of nausea, and Shaw leans out of the way as Root turns towards the toilet once again. There’s nothing left in her stomach but bile, and she washes away the bitterness with a gulp of water, wiping at her mouth with the sleeve of her sweat-soaked and blood streaked shirt.

“Can I borrow some clothes?” Shaw gives her a long-suffering look before sighing and leaving the bathroom, returning a moment later with a thin cotton shirt and some shorts. Shaw turns her back as soon as she’s handed the clothes over, and Root manages to stand and get dressed by herself, though it exhausts her and as soon as she’s pulled the shirt over her head she slides back down the wall onto the floor, her legs shaky. “You don’t have to preserve my modesty, you know,” she says when Shaw turns back around, and other woman merely rolls her eyes as she scoops up the clothes Root had been wearing and throws them into a hamper in the corner of the room.

She returns to Root’s side, fingers pressing against the jumping pulse point in her neck, and she glances down at the watch on her wrist as she counts the number of beats, but Root doesn’t think she needs to, can tell that her heart is beating dangerously fast and she wonders if maybe it is going to give out, after all – she was sure Control hadn’t expected her to be able to take the number of doses she had.

“You’re probably not going to like this,” Shaw says slowly as she reaches for the well-stocked first aid kit she’d fetched when she’d seen the extent of Root’s injuries. “But I need to give you something to slow your heartrate or you’re not going to make it through the night.”

Root eyes her warily, watching her movements carefully, and when Shaw’s hand emerges from the first aid kit holding a needle she rears backwards, so dizzy and disorientated that she smacks her head against the tiles behind her and curses as her vision swims.

“It’s just one needle,” Shaw tries to reassure her, but Root’s flashing back to the twenty plus that had been stuck into her just a few hours ago and shakes her head wildly. “It won’t even hurt.” But her arms are bruised and she knows it will – mentally, if not physically – and she hears her breathing, shaky and rapid, as the edges of her vision start to turn black and she wonders if she’s going to pass out.

“I can’t,” she whispers, wide eyes fixed on the needle, imagining what it’ll feel like sliding into her skin, and nearly vomits again. “I can’t.”

“Just look at me,” Shaw implores, her free hand curving around Root’s jaw, tilting her head up so that their eyes meet. “Just focus on me.” Root lets her eyes flit across Shaw’s face, taking her in in a way that she’s never truly allowed herself before – the angle of her cheekbones, the thickness of her eyelashes, the curve of her lips and finally the darkness of her eyes, feels herself getting lost in them as she attempts to match her breathing to Shaw’s even breaths.

She flinches violently when she feels the needle snake its way into her arm, her breath rushing out of her, but it’s over just as quickly, Shaw dropping her hand from Root’s face as she neatly discards the needle into the trash.

“Thank you. For helping me,” she murmurs quietly as Shaw busies herself with putting her supplies away now that Root doesn’t seem to need them anymore, and she merely shrugs as she shuts the lid of the first aid kit and shoves it back under the sink.

“Well, you didn’t really give me much choice, showing up half-dead at my place.”

“You could’ve left me in the hall,” Root points out, and Shaw scoffs, though she swears there’s a small smile playing at the edges of Shaw’s lips.

“And have to deal with the cops when they find a corpse in my hallway?” Shaw shakes her head and, medical supplies all safely put away, straightens up and leans one shoulder back against the ballroom wall. “Plus, Finch’d probably think that I’d killed you, and I don’t need either of those complications in my life right now.”

“Harold would probably be pretty happy if I wound up dead,” Root replies, a little sadly, and is surprised when Shaw shakes her head.

“Nah. You’ve got that super-link to the Machine, you’re pretty important.”

“So you need me,” Root suggests, a tiny smirk on her mouth that only widens at the predictable way Shaw casts her eyes towards the ceiling.

“No. The team needs you, sometimes, I guess – you _did_ save our asses from Control,” Shaw admits, begrudgingly, and Root fondly remembers the fierce look on Shaw’s face as she’d fired a few shots at the guy that had shot Root, the reluctance in her movements as Root had screamed at her to leave her there and get out while she still could. They made a pretty great team, if you asked Root (she doesn’t think Shaw agrees – not yet, at least – but Root’s working on getting her there). “ _I_ don’t need you.”

“Even though I saved _your_ ass, too?” She asks, sweetly, watching as Shaw narrows her eyes.

“It was under control,” Shaw replies immediately, and Root shakes her head because as far as she could tell, Shaw was about three seconds away from a bullet to the brain if not for Root’s intervention – but then, Shaw wouldn’t be Shaw if she admitted to needing Root to rescue her.

“And even though I’m kinda hot?” She knows her eyes are sparkling, and even though her ear and arm are still throbbing and tremors still wrack through her body every few minutes, the return of her flirtatious banter with Shaw makes her feel a little better, breathe a little easier, than she has ever since Control had had her dragged from that apartment complex.

“I never said - ” Shaw cuts herself off with a huff, eyes narrowing even further. “You know what? Never mind, I’m not doing this.” Root pouts, but Shaw just ignores her, out of doctor mode and back to her usual gruff self. “I’m going back to bed. Withdrawal’s going to be a bitch for you for the next few hours, so you’re probably better off in here. Try not die during the night.”

With that she turns and stalks into the other room, leaving Root curled up on the bathroom floor. Though she can feel her pulse slowing, she still feels ill, and she knows she won’t be getting any rest tonight, despite the exhaustion she can feel down to her aching bones.

She wishes she’d asked Shaw for a painkiller, but she doesn’t want to bother the other woman any more than she already has – she thinks she’s shown enough weakness in-front of her tonight already, doubts that Shaw would have even flinched if their positions were reversed, and she hates the thought of Shaw thinking less of her because of this, when she feels so weak and helpless.

She vows to leave as soon as she feels able, not wanting to be any further burden on Shaw, but right now she doesn’t think her legs are up to holding her weight so instead she closes her eyes, leaning her head back against the wall behind her. She’s uneasy at first, has to bite down the panic that floods her at not being able to take in any sound of her surroundings on her right side, but she takes deep, steady breaths to calm herself down.

In an attempt to distract herself from her pain and discomfort, she listens to the sounds around her. She hears the rustling of sheets from Shaw’s bedroom as she moves, the faint sound of a clock ticking and then the steady sound of Shaw’s breathing. She tells herself that it’s okay, she’s going to be okay – she still has one good ear, and she can adjust, even if it takes a little time. Her link with the Machine hasn’t been completely severed, and just as she always has done, she’ll survive.

It’s the early hours of the morning before she starts to feel better, and as soon as she feels up to standing she tugs her jeans back on (but keeps Shaw’s shirt – she knows it’ll annoy her, and the fact that it smells like Shaw is definitely an added bonus), slipping out of Shaw’s front door and back out onto the street with the address of a pharmacy and a place to lie low for the next few days while she recovers texted to her phone.

She casts one final look at Shaw before she leaves, lying on her back with her eyes closed, face relaxed in sleep and illuminated by the faint sunrise that spills through the large window, and thinks that she’s never seen something so beautiful.

x-x-x

By the third time, Root thinks that she should probably be getting used to the pain by now, and yet being shot still hurts like a bitch.

It doesn’t help that the lidocaine from her cochlear implant surgery begins to wear off as she’s taking Cyrus to safety, the thin line of stitches throbbing in time with the beat of her heart as she presses a thin strip of cloth to the bullet wound in her chest whilst Cyrus drives them towards one of Harold’s safehouses.

Shaw is already there, standing by the huge glass doors that lead out onto the balcony, looking at the city sprawled below them with a glass of scotch held in one hand, but she turns at the sound of the door opening, rolling her eyes skyward when she sees that Root is injured, yet again, taking her arm and dragging her into the bathroom while Cyrus watches them go curiously, grabbing the bottle of scotch in her other hand as they pass the dining room table.

“Do you make it your mission to get shot on every number you help us with, or is it just a coincidence?” She asks as Root perches on the edge of the bathtub, shrugging out of her jacket and tossing the bloodied material she’d been using to stem the bleeding into the trashcan under the sink.

“Maybe I just like you patching me up.”

“Maybe you should stop almost dying just to get my attention.” Shaw already has a first aid kit open on the bathroom floor, and from the way she gingerly moves her left arm as she reaches for gauze and antiseptic, Root wonders if she’d used it on herself before they’d gotten here.

“I wouldn’t have to if you didn’t make it so difficult,” Root pouts, and Shaw lets out a long-suffering sigh, sitting on the closed toilet seat as she reaches for the hem of Root’s shirt and tugs it down slightly to get a look at the wound beneath.

“You’re gonna need to take this off,” she says, then, releasing her hold and letting it snap back into place, and Root raises an eyebrow and lets a smirk cross her lips, delighted.

“Why, Sameen - ” Root begins to drawl, but Shaw cuts her off sharply.

“Don’t call me that.”

“If you wanted me to take my clothes off for you, you only needed to ask,” Root continues as though Shaw had never spoken, and when Shaw just blinks at her she curls her hand around the shirt and pulls it over her head, draping it over the side of the tub beside her. “Better?” She teases, but Shaw only grunts, pushing some of Root’s hair over her shoulder and out of the way – she does a double-take as she pulls her hand away, frowning as she instead tilts Root to one side.

“What happened to your ear?” She asks, tapping the edge of the bandage, releasing her hold of Root’s jaw and reaching for the bottle antiseptic, instead. 

“Cochlear implant.” She replies just as Shaw’s splashing antiseptic on a gauze pad, and she’s so surprised by Root’s words that her hand jerks, spilling some of it over her lap and she curses quietly.

“What,” she starts as she dabs at her pants with another piece of gauze, “you just decided to go and get surgery halfway through the day?”

“Had to.” Shaw looks at her like she’s crazy, and Root supposes that her explanation isn’t going to make her think any less, but she tries anyway. “Decima cut my link to the Machine; it was the only way she could talk to me. Plus, now I have a direct line to Her in my head.”

“Yeah, cause that’s not creepy at all,” Shaw mutters, shaking her head as she begins to clean Root’s wound – she could probably do it herself, by now, but this is definitely more fun. Last time she’d been too out of it to really pay any attention to Shaw’s movements but there’s little else to distract her this time, and she notes that Shaw’s hands are a lot gentler than they had been the first time she’d done this, even though there’s no getting around the sting. “You’re lucky this wasn’t a couple inches lower.”

Root hadn’t been thinking so much about that at the time – she’d known that it was really fucking stupid to walk into a hail of bullets, but there was a part of her that detested the thought of anything happening to Cyrus, not after she’d so thoroughly ruined his life already.

She doesn’t think too much about who she’d been before the Machine, these days, and the reminder of it had startled her. She liked to keep her distance from her victims, had never had to face the aftermath of the things that she’d done, never had to look into the eyes of the family or friends of people she’d had killed.

But today she had, and Root’s not so sure she liked what she saw.

And that’s not to say she suddenly cares, because she doesn’t. She’d meant what she’d said to Harold, so long ago now – people were just bad code, and to her, that philosophy still stands. There are a handful of people in this world that she cares about, all of which are within this safehouse (she’d heard the sound of Harold and John entering a few minutes ago, and while she could do without John she knows it’d hurt Harold and Shaw if anything… unfortunate were to happen to him), but that doesn’t mean that she’s ready to come face-to-face with anymore of her past sins.

“You should really be more careful,” Shaw says when Root doesn’t reply, and she manages a small smile as she glances down at the other woman, her head tilted down and her eyes fixed firmly on her hands.

“It is so _sweet_ that you worry about me.” Shaw jabs at her with the gauze, but Root had been expecting it and doesn’t flinch. When Shaw raises her head to accompany the gesture with a glare, though, Root’s breath catches in the back of her throat because she’s leaning so close that she swears she can feel Shaw’s breath ghosting across her lips and she’s enveloped in the scent of Shaw’s shampoo and her laundry detergent and gunpowder and just _Shaw_ , and it makes her pulse race, her eyes unable to help but drop to Shaw’s lips as her tongue snakes across her own.

She wonders what Shaw would do, if she leant forward those last few inches to brush their lips together. She’s almost tempted when she sees Shaw’s own gaze drop, following the movement of Root’s tongue before darting back up to meet her eyes, but she sees the fierce look in Shaw’s eyes and thinks that maybe now isn’t the right time.

“I do not _worry_ about you,” Shaw says, eventually, though there’s no bite to her words. “Like I said last time – you come in useful sometimes. It’d be inconvenient if you died, probably, but I’m sure I’d get over it.”

“Whatever you say, Sameen.”

“You know,” Shaw replies as she drops the gauze into the trash, “it’s probably not a good idea to piss off the person that’s about to be rooting around your body looking for a stray bullet. Just throwing that out there.”

“It’s going to hurt like a bitch either way,” Root shrugs, “may as well have some fun while I’m at it.” Shaw mutters something that Root doesn’t quite manage to catch as she pours a healthy splash of alcohol over a pair of tweezers, and Root reaches for the bottle when she sets it down, raising it to her lips and taking a gulp, wincing as she swallows.

“Not a big drinker, huh?” Shaw asks, trying (and failing) to hide a smirk when she notices the look on Root’s face.

“What gave it away?”

“The fact that you just grimaced drinking what is probably one of the finest bottles of scotch I’ve ever tasted.”

“I can think of things that’d taste a thousand times better,” she replies, running her eyes suggestively down Shaw’s figure, and Shaw takes the opportunity to press a gloved finger into Root’s bullet wound, searching around for the scrap of metal before using the tweezers to yank it out – she’s never done things this way around before, but Root supposes there’s a lot less tissue in the way in her arm compared to her chest, and the feeling of it makes her a little queasy. “Well, this isn’t how I imagined the first time you were inside of me going,” she says, voice a little shaky as Shaw lets out a little grunt of triumph and reaches for the tweezers.

“Yeah, well, you keep imaging that,” she says as she retracts the bloodstained tweezers and lets them drop onto the table, bullet clattering along with them – Root wonders if she should start saving them as souvenirs. “’Cause it’s never going to happen.”

“Ouch,” Root pouts as Shaw reaches for the stitches. “That hurts, Sameen.”

“Strangely enough, I don’t care.” Root hums in the back of her throat in response, looking away as Shaw finishes the line of sutures and applies a dressing over the top, leaning back and stretching her arms above her head, wincing as she does.

“Do we match?” Root asks, curiously, knowing that Shaw had been absent for most of the day. Shaw looks at her blankly and Root nods towards her left arm, which for the most past she’s kept held close to her side. “You’re not moving as freely as usual.”

“Had a run-in with a few Vigilance members while you and Reese were shooting up half of New York city.” The Machine whispers that Shaw had taken out ten members of Vigilance singlehandedly, and Root feels a flash of admiration pass through her, wishes she could’ve been there to see it because Shaw in action is… breath-taking. “Got a couple of grazes for my trouble.”

“You should be more careful, Shaw,” Root says seriously, and Shaw’s eyes narrow in her general direction as she begins to clean away the medical supplies.

“I was surrounded _alone_ and still managed to get out of there without any bullets properly hitting me.”

“You’ve had military training,” Root pouts, “you have an unfair advantage.” Shaw ignores her, tossing Root’s shirt back towards her – it hits her square in the face and Shaw smirks. She puts it back on reluctantly, doesn’t miss the way Shaw’s eyes flit once over her chest before it’s hidden from view, the only glance she’s allowed herself this entire time. “Maybe if you gave me some pointers, I wouldn’t be so bad.”

“I’ve seen you with a gun, Root, you don’t need any pointers.” She feels a slight swell of pride at that, but makes sure her expression is carefully neutral by the time that Shaw turns back around. “And I have better things to do with my time.”

“And yet if I were better trained maybe I’d stop getting hit so much and you wouldn’t have to patch me up after every mission.” Shaw squints at her for a long moment, and Root can see the debate running through her head.

“Ask Reese,” she settles on, eventually, and Root pouts.

“But John doesn’t like me.”

“And _I_ do?” Shaw scoffs in disbelief, turning to look at Root with her hands on her hips and a raised eyebrow.

“I think I’m growing on you.”

“Yeah, like a fungus,” Shaw mutters under her breath. “Now let me check your ear before I put this away.” She nods towards the first aid kit before she steps forward, brushing Root’s hair away from her ear before gently removing the strips of tape securing the bandage to her skin.

“It was carried out by a medical professional, Shaw, I’m sure it’s fine.”

“And I’m sure you coerced the poor bastard to operate at gunpoint,” Shaw guess correctly, “and as a result they might not have been as inclined to be as meticulous as usual.”

Root doesn’t reply, leaving Shaw to her examination as she allows herself to revel in how close Shaw has stepped – Root’s still perched on the edge of the bathtub but Shaw is standing, the height difference meaning that Root’s face is practically level with Shaw’s breasts and god, what she wouldn’t give for Shaw’s hoodie to just magically disappear right now.

“What’s the verdict?” She asks as Shaw steps away after reapplying the bandage, snapping the gloves off her wrists and throwing them away as she slides the first aid kit under the sink, and Root wonders absently if she has one in the same place in every safehouse Harold owns.

“Looks pretty clean. You get antibiotics?” Root hums a yes, and Shaw nods in approval. “Make sure you take ‘em otherwise it’ll get infected and you’ll lose your creepy direct line to your other half.”

“Thank you.”

“You can _show_ me how thankful you are - ” Root’s mouth opens at _that_ opportunity, ready with a lewd comment, but Shaw cuts her off with a glare and rushes to finish her sentence, “by not getting shot again. Or tortured,” she adds, almost as an afterthought, eyeing Root curiously. “I’m guessing the fact that you’re still breathing means that you’ve recovered from your little chat with control?”

“With no complications.”

“Would’ve been nice for you to stick around long enough for me to check your pulse in the morning. You could’ve needed another dose of adenosine.”

“Aw, were you worried about me?” She teases rather than acknowledging the fact that a part of her had been too ashamed at the thought of facing Shaw again after showing such weakness, and it works as Shaw’s eyes roll and she huffs out an annoyed sigh. “Offended that I didn’t say goodbye?”

She stalks out of the room, then, and Root chuckles to herself before pushing herself upright and following Shaw back out into the adjourning room, where Cyrus quickly approaches her and pulls her out onto the balcony to express his gratitude for everything she’d done (all the while she’s thinking that what had happened to him is all her fault, but can’t bring herself to tell him that, doesn’t need to ruin his perception of the world).

When Shaw checks her dressings for a final time a little later on, Root can’t help but let a teasing remark slip past her lips (a true one, because she _does_ love it when Shaw plays doctor), just to see the grumpy look on her face as she snatches her hand away.

x-x-x

“You’re a fucking idiot.” It’s not the first time that Root’s heard that sentence that night – Shaw repeats it every time she glances at Root and sees her clutching at her arm. It’s her left ( _again_ ) and she supposes she’s just lucky that the guys who keep shooting at her seem to have consistently bad aim and none have hit her heart as intended. “An absolute fucking idiot.”

“I got the message an hour ago, Shaw,” Root grumbles as she and Shaw are slipping out of the car they’d stolen after escaping the warehouse of Samaritan servers, concealing it in the garage of an empty house the Machine had directed them to for the night.

“Strangely enough,” Shaw huffs as she grabs a torch from a worktop before shouldering open the door to the house, “considering you were prepared to careen into a Decima facility by yourself with barely a plan and would be _dead_ if I hadn’t come to rescue you, and considering that you got yourself shot, _again_ , I really don’t think you did.”

Shaw had been furious, when Root had shoved her out of the way of an oncoming bullet, letting it embed itself in her for her trouble. And it’s not like she’d necessarily _meant_ to do it but she’d seen Shaw in danger and she’d just sort of… moved without even thinking, because if there’s one thing Root is sure of it’s that she doesn’t want to live in world without Sameen Shaw in it.

She hadn’t been thinking of her own safety. Samaritan would be online in just a few short hours – they’d failed, _she’d_ failed and Root doesn’t know what the morning’s going to bring but she is sure she’s going to hate it. Because she has to give it all up, the life she’s coined for herself, the _family_ she’s managed to make for herself, all because they’d lost this battle and maybe the whole damn war, too.

“But you _did_ come to rescue me,” Root argues as she follows Shaw into the house, knowing that the memory of Shaw biking her way across the city because she was worried about ‘the mission’ (Root doesn’t buy that for a second), will stay with her for a long time to come. It’s the first time she’s allowed herself to wonder if Shaw really _does_ care about her more than she’ll ever say. “So it turned out fine in the end.”

“You could have _died_ , Root,” Shaw hisses, whirling around the face Root with fire in her eyes.

“But I didn’t.”

“But you _could_ have, and what the hell were we supposed to do then, huh?”

“There was a contingency plan in place,” Root shrugs, because she’d known that, she’d had a plan for getting into the Decima compound and installing the drivers, but getting _out_ safely hadn’t exactly been her top priority. She’d been prepared to die, but she wasn’t about to leave the others without protection. “So it would’ve been fine.”

“Un-fucking-believable,” Shaw mutters to herself, before turning her back on Root and stomping her way upstairs, leaving Root standing in the hallway. She makes her way into the kitchen, sighing happily when she sees the large bottle of scotch sitting on the countertop, pulling off the lid and taking a long sip (the taste has grown on her over the last few months), listening to the sound of Shaw moving around upstairs.

She returns a few moments later with annoyed look on her face, taking the bottle from Root’s hand and pressing it to her lips before she speaks. “What kind of house doesn’t have decent medical supplies?” She mutters, so quietly that Root thinks she could be talking to herself.

“Most people aren’t generally in as much danger as we are on a day-to-day basis, Sameen,” Root points out as she drops into a chair at the kitchen table, squinting down at her arm in the dim lighting of the room and wondering absently when the power’s going to return to the city.

“Whatever,” Shaw mutters, pulling a chair in-front of Root and throwing herself into it. “Let me see the damage.”

It doesn’t hurt as much as Root remembers, and she doesn’t know if that’s because she’s starting to get used to it or because there’s a part of her that feels a little numb after facing the reality of Samaritan. Because there was no getting around it now – she’s seen the servers, done the best she can to give the seven of them a fighting chance, but she has no idea how long it’ll last or even if it will work at all, and the thought of something going wrong, of something happening to the others because she hadn’t been good enough, makes her throat close up.

She thinks of Shaw, of what it would be like, to never see her again. Her eyes land on Shaw’s face, the features of it so familiar now, and finds herself longing to reach out her fingers and brush them down her to cheek, to allow herself to touch her like she’s always wanted, but never dared.

She lets out a low hiss as Shaw splashes alcohol over the wound in place of the usual antiseptic, blinks away the tears of pain that spring into her eyes as Shaw takes the knife that Root had used to cut the RFI chips out of the Decima agents arms to retrieve the bullet, and when she’s done she wraps Root’s arm with a thin strip of torn material, muttering about her needing to find something to stitch it up with in the morning.

Shaw moves to her own wrist, then, stretching her arm across the table and Root watches, transfixed, as she lowers the blade of the knife to her skin and makes a small incision, pushing the chip out of her arm easily and smashing the tiny piece of metal beneath her fist. Root’s mouth feels dry, her eyes transfixed on the knife, and Shaw does a double-take as her eyes meet Root’s, widening for a fraction of a second before she swallows and looks away.

“Want me to do yours?” Root bites back the innuendo that threatens to spill from her lips, and instead gives Shaw her arm, the fingers of her left hand wrapping around Root’s wrist to keep it steady. A soft sound escapes her at the feeling of cool steel on her skin, giving way easily to the blade, blood welling up in its wake and Root swears she sees Shaw let out a shaky breath as she releases her hold on Root, the pieces of the second chip lying beside the first.

Root wonders, as Shaw’s head turns and their eyes meet, if hers are as dark as Shaw’s – they seem to glow in the moonlight, a predatory gleam to them that has Root’s tongue tracing her lips, a hitch to her breathing. She thinks that this may as well be the last night on Earth, for the two of them, because tomorrow they start their new lives and what better way to end the last and start the new by giving into the tension that’s always been in the periphery ever since that first fateful meeting in that hotel room?

“What happens tomorrow?” Shaw asks, her voice deathly quiet even in the silent house, and Root wishes she has an answer for her other than –

“The world goes to hell.” For probably the first time in her life, Root doesn’t really have a plan. She’s always had a goal – get out of Bishop, get revenge for Hanna, establish herself as a hacker and assassin-for-hire, find the Machine, work for the Machine – and without one she feels like her world is off-kilter, spinning out of control without a damn thing she can do to stop it. “And we hope we’ve done enough to keep ourselves safe.”

“You think it’ll work?”

“I don’t know.” It’s a ragged breath, because the thought of what will happen to them all if it doesn’t is unthinkable. “I don’t know. But if it doesn’t then there won’t be a tomorrow for us because when the sun rises and Samaritan comes online Greer will know where we are and there isn’t a chance in hell he’ll let us live.”

“And tonight?”

“We enjoy our last night as ourselves.” Their eyes meet, and Root takes in how close they are – Shaw had never moved away after she’d finished cleaning Root up, their breath mingling in the air between them as Root takes a moment to just breathe Shaw in, to run her eyes over her face because when dawn breaks she doesn’t know when she’ll get to lay eyes on her again. She wonders, from the way Shaw’s staring back at her, if she’s wondering the same thing. “Sameen, I - ”

Root forgets what she’d been about to say when Shaw lurches forward and presses their lips together, one hand curling around the back of Root’s neck and the other gripping the back of Root’s chair in an attempt to not send them toppling over. She’s so surprised that it takes Root a moment to react, because she’s dreamt of this, thought of this, imagined how this would feel (Sameen Shaw is _actually_ kissing her and it’s _real_ ) more times than she can count but the reality… god, the reality of it is so much _more_.

She moans when Shaw’s tongue flicks against her lips, parting them eagerly as she reaches for the other woman, fisting a hand in her jacket and using it to pull her closer so that Shaw’s straddling her in the chair, her other hand travelling around to Shaw’s ass and sliding into the back pocket of her jeans, squeezing gently and revelling in the groan that echoes into her mouth.

It’s too much and not enough at the same time – if this is their only chance to be together, then Root wants so much more than this, wants to press her fingertips and her mouth against every inch of Shaw’s skin, doesn’t want to stop until Shaw’s begging her to because she can’t take it anymore.

So her hands scramble to the shoulders of Shaw’s jacket, pushing it down her arms and Shaw releases her hold on Root in order to let it drop to the floor. Strong hands wind into Root’s hair and drag her head to one side roughly, and she breathes a quiet curse as Shaw’s mouth presses a hard kiss against the side of her neck, teeth grazing against her skin, and when Shaw nips at her pulse point Root’s eyes flutter closed, her breathing turning laboured.

When Shaw’s mouth meets hers again it’s desperate, a clash of teeth and tongue and Root _needs_ to feel Shaw pressed against her more than this, slides her hands under Shaw’s thighs and somehow manages to lift her onto the kitchen table, scrambling on-top of her and pressing a thigh between her legs.

The bottle of scotch crashes to the floor but Root barely notices, too preoccupied by sliding her mouth down the side of Shaw’s neck and tasting her skin for the first time, Shaw’s fingers, clenched in her hair, encouraging her on.

Her hands play with the hem of Shaw’s shirt as her mouth reaches the base of her neck, swirling her tongue in the hollow of Shaw’s throat before she sits back on her haunches, dragging Shaw up with her so that she can tug her shirt over her head, pressing her back against the table once it’s off with a hand against her sternum.

She allows herself a moment to take in the sight of Shaw spread out half-naked beneath her, looking up at her through half-lidded eyes, before dipping back down to claim Shaw’s mouth with her tongue as she palms one of her breasts through her sports bra.

Shaw’s hips arch desperately against her thigh, and Root braces herself on the forearm of her injured arm, set flat beside Shaw’s head as she grinds back against her, letting out a quiet gasp as the seam of her jeans presses against her clit.

There’s an ache between her thighs that’s been building ever since Shaw had looked at her with heat in her eyes after she’d picked up that knife, but the slow rock of her hips isn’t enough to alleviate it – she wants Shaw’s hands on her, wants her hands on Shaw with a desperation that leaves her breathless.

She thinks, from the way that Shaw’s hands drop to her waist and tug at the button of her jeans, yanking the zipper down and jamming her hand in the gap it leaves, that she feels the same way. And then her mind goes blank for a blissful few seconds as Shaw’s fingers find her hot and wet, sliding along the length of her sex, encouraged by the rocking of Root’s hips. She buries her head in Shaw’s neck when two fingers press inside of her, lips pressing against her skin and breathing her in.

She can feel Shaw’s pulse racing beneath her mouth, swears it picks up when Root’s free hand slides down Shaw’s body and into her pants – she’d wanted to draw this out, wanted Shaw left wet and aching and wanton beneath her before finally touching her for the first time, but she tells herself that they’ll be time to explore one another’s bodies after this first frantic time, and breathes out a low moan when she feels how wet Shaw is beneath her fingertips.

She circles Shaw’s clit lightly, enjoying the way her hips jerk beneath her hand. Shaw presses a third finger inside of Root in response, and she sucks in a harsh breath at how _perfect_ it feels to be so full and stretched, grinding against Shaw’s hand desperately.

Shaw’s laboured breathing is loud in her ears as Root presses inside of her with two fingers and god, Shaw feels amazing around her, hot and wet and perfect and so much better than she’d imagined. She matches the rhythm of Shaw’s fingers inside of her, teeth and tongue working at the skin of her neck as they work towards the edge together.

When Root feels Shaw begin to tighten around her fingers, drawing her deeper, she angles her hand to swipe her thumb against her clit and presses a harsh bite to the side of Shaw’s neck, groaning when she feels Shaw pulse around her fingers, her breath rushing out in a quiet groan as she comes – Shaw’s fingers never stop moving, the palm of her hand skating across Root’s clit with every thrust, and it doesn’t take Root long to follow, pressing her lips against Shaw’s skin to ensure she doesn’t accidentally breathe out the other woman’s name.

They lie there for a long moment afterwards, their hearts racing and breathing shallow and Root’s almost afraid to glance up, doesn’t know what look will be on Shaw’s face – doesn’t want to feel the sting of rejection if she decides that this was a massive lapse in judgement and pushes her away.

And then the power is restored, the light above them flickering to life and illuminating them in a bright glow, and Root knows there’s no avoiding it anymore as Shaw shifts slightly beneath her. She slips her hand free of Shaw’s underwear (and breathes out a quiet sigh at the loss she feels when Shaw follows suit) and splays it flat on the table next to Shaw’s hip, using it as leverage to hold herself up, finally raising her head to meet Shaw’s gaze. Her expression is carefully guarded (though her eyes are hooded and her cheeks flushed and god, she looks so fucking beautiful that it takes her breath away), and as Root moves Shaw shuffles out from underneath her and climbs to her feet.

Root struggles not to flinch as she hears the sound of footsteps approaching the kitchen door, because she’d known that this wouldn’t mean nearly as much to Shaw as it did to her, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t _hurt_.

But then the footsteps stop, and Shaw speaks, and Root raises her head to see the other woman looking at her with a half-smile on her mouth. “You coming or not?” Root just blinks at her for a long moment, not fully able to believe that any of this actually happening (she wonders how obvious it would be if she were to pinch herself). “Cause if this is our last and only night together then there a _lot_ of things that I want to do to you and I don’t think that table’s gonna be up to withstanding some of them.”

Root doesn’t think she’s ever moved as fast in her life as she does when she follows Shaw up the stairs.  


End file.
